RPHQ March 2016 Spotlight

Quote of the Month

Don’t Worry About Being Clever. Just let that go. If every idea that every person at the table put forward was the Best, Most Innovative, Cleverest Bit Ever, the game would honestly not be all that great. Having a bunch of solid, uninspired, inter-related stuff in the game can form an amazing foundation that really makes those perfectly timed, witty, terrifying, emotionally-honest, and whatever-else bits stand out. Just Saying Stuff Even If You’re Not Sure It’s Great is an important part of any game. Doesn’t have to be great. The greatness will emerge. Trust me! Let yourself get there instead of trying to force it.

— Hilary McNaughton, How to Get Started with Roleplaying

ART SPOTLIGHT

Roleplaying is an art with many components to it. Graphic art, comic books and literature can all easily add to our roleplay experiences or even stem from them. Our featured art this month is that of Justin Oaksford, an artistic illustration of "Ozymandias", based on the poem by Percey Shelley.

ARTICLE SPOTLIGHT

CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT

Nominated by tooktookbird: Finlin from ESO

Finlin is my favorite character. He’s fun. Happy. ESO is so dark, but he’s got indomitable spirit! Plus he’s young, and it’s fun to play him, learning and growing as he goes. Finlin is kind of a Pippin/Tasslehoff blend. He is energetic, optimistic and takes a pretty simplified view of the world. He does what his moral compass points him to do, and doesn’t give it a second thought. He feels like a person. He’s got history that’s a blend of off camera story and stuff I’ve RP’d through. I’ve been really lucky to have some awesome RP on him and it just makes for a deep character. OOC, through him, I’ve got to meet so many awesome players. Just really cool people.

— Spork2k

Which of your characters is your favorite, and why? Share your answers here

MUSIC SPOTLIGHT

This month's feature music comes from our character spotlight, Finlin's theme songs.

This month's music challenge: A Pandora station for your character!

Explore genres that you’ve never been into. Avoiding what you normally listen to forces you to explore and listen to new options that may be something your character would like. It’s sometimes hard to listen to things that you don’t like for the sake of your character. However, try to get into your character's mindset and ask yourself, ‘Is this something my character would listen to?’. When you’ve gotten a few songs, make a Pandora account and make a channel for your character. It plays related music to the bands that you’ve chosen and suggest bands to add to the channel so you can keep experiencing new music and songs.

Have fun immersing yourself into your character's music! Post your experience and comments in our character music section on the forums.

MMORPG

ARCHITECT SPOTLIGHT

In SWTOR, large starships can be purchased and decorated by guilds. There are two classes: Harrower-class dreadnought for Imperial guilds, and Valor-class cruisers for Republic guilds. The flagships have four decks that hold a total of fifteen rooms.

Rift Cozy Cottages contest by The Dimension Touring Company

BOOK SPOTLIGHT

This study takes an analytical approach to the world of role-playing games, providing a theoretical framework for understanding their psychological and sociological functions. Sometimes dismissed as escapist and potentially dangerous, role-playing actually encourages creativity, self-awareness, group cohesion and “out-of-the-box” thinking. The book also offers a detailed participant-observer ethnography on role-playing games, featuring insightful interviews with 19 participants of table-top, live action and virtual games.

— About The Functions of Role-Playing

Part of the book, too, is about roleplaying,” Kopas says. “Even if you weren’t explicitly roleplaying in the sense of going to a place where everyone was assuming a character very deliberately, you were doing some form of playing around with identity. You were creating yourself in a space where nobody really knew who you were.

— The Mary Sue

RPHQ's PREVIOUS CONTENT

Guest Blog - Subculture - A mysterious guest blogger appears in the tavern to give us his thoughts on the sub-sub-sub cultures of roleplay. He discusses the differences between RPers who were raised on the internet and those who started the hobby with tabletop. Let him know your thoughts!

Relatable Rock'n'Roleplay - Our hosts discuss a recent study which suggests that roleplayers are more empathetic than non-roleplayers. Afterwards, they continue to explore the mysterious world of White Falls, coming face to face with an entity that has been stalking them all this time...

Lore Implications - Like a majestic Slowpoke, we bring you the Poke'Lore episode in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the series... a few weeks after the 20th anniversary. Mycroft discusses the deeper lore of Pokemon that you may not know of!

Lore Implications - Mycroft and Nick discuss the origins of certain Forgotten Realms deities and races. Get ready for a few lessons in Mythology as we try to find where the writers of lore could have been inspired for the stories we now love!

RPHQ's UPCOMING CONTENT

RPHQ Meeting - Floyd will be messaging everyone involved in contributing to RPHQ with the date of an upcoming meeting to discuss what we'll be doing next with the site and how everyone can best use their talents to contribute. If you're interested in sharing your original content with the site or helping us turn this into the central hub for RP on the internet, message TheHumanFloyd atthehumanfloyd@gmail.com and let him know you want to be part of the RPHQ team!

White Falls Rock'n'Roleplay - White Falls will burn! The grande finale of Taage's White Falls RP campaign is at hand. Find out what the heck is going on in the cursed little town and join in on the OOC discussion on what makes a good RP setting with Ma1function, Dyna and Floyd. You could even win a CD!